Ace Combat: The Fall of Estoque
by The Great and Powerful Keski
Summary: In this long awaited sequel to Restitution, the Estoque Squadron is sent on a dangerous mission to unveil the mysterious E. Razgriz. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 1

- - -

_Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future._

_The sheltering wings of the protector…_

- - -

Who am I?

I am Alejandro Martin Sortija. I'm a fighter pilot, as I've always dreamed of being. I fly for the Sapin Air Force, as a proud member of the 16th Air Division, 19th Tactical Fighter Squadron, also known as the Estoque Squadron.

Well… Officially, anyway. Off the record, I've also got another set of employers. I suppose it's all for the better. The Sapin military isn't involved in much at this point in history. My 'other' employers, however, are constantly getting requests, and we are the ones sent out to oblige. That's right—it isn't just me. The entire Estoque Squadron works both for the Air Force, and for the mysterious faction which doesn't seem to have a name, even though all of our superiors bear the title of Primary. There's the Head Primary, who runs everything, and then there's the First Primary, Second, Third, and so forth.

How we came into service under these Primary people is a long story, and one for another time. Suffice to say it seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, though, I would almost prefer a dull life in the Sapin Air Force, as opposed to the chaotic turmoil I have to endure to serve both the Air Force and the Primaries.

- - -

"…ound for…from bo…mies…ancing togeth…aginable…ile ago…"

It was 10:24 P.M., according to the analogue clock on the wall across the bar. The television's volume was turned up ridiculously high, and yet I still couldn't hear it over the clamour of the bar.

"Can't you turn the television up any higher?" I had to shout to the bartender. He was a friend of mine, named Laurus, after the city.

He shrugged half-apologetically. "Sorry, Sortija. I can't help you." He was flagged down by another patron and went to see what the man wanted.

I looked at my beer. It wasn't very appetizing; the liquid bubbled, half-assedly, in the bottom of my mug. I didn't even like beer, really.

"I think I'm going to call it a night, then," I called to Laurus. He nodded, I think in response to me, though he didn't turn from the drink he was mixing. I shrugged into my black jacket and got off the stool. It took me a minute or so to make my way to the door.

The moment I stepped outside and into the cold, dark night, it was as if I had stepped into another world. The hot, smoke-filled air of the bar was gone, replaced by the sharp, but clean, night air. And there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It seemed that lately, all Sapin had ever known was rain. Now, though, every star in the heavens was shining mightily, despite the fact that I stood outside a tavern on the Vía Central, one of the busiest streets in this area of Gran Rugido.

In fact, it struck me as odd that there was only a single car on the street, especially since that car was mine, parked where I'd left it across from the tavern. I eyed it, and then looked around myself.

"I'm not a fool," I said. "This absence of activity isn't natural. The Primaries, I assume?"

No sooner had the words escaped my lips than was the Head Primary standing before me, a wry smile on his face.

"Congratulations," he said, "you win." The Head Primary was wearing a black trench coat which effectively hid anything else he might be wearing—or wielding. In my experience, no Primary ever ventured outside the HQ without a weapon. His hair was his most noticeable feature—is fell straight to his shoulders, and was perfectly white. The Primary, though, was only about twenty-five years old.

"Can I help you?" I said. "I'd really like to get home. There's a news program that I'm afraid I've already missed most of."

He waved a hand dismissively. "That is unimportant, I assure you. The outcome of this war is already known to the Primaries."

"Yes, well, I'm not a Primary, so—"

"We require your presence. The rest of your squadron has already been informed. You, Alejandro, are to report to the HQ as soon as possible."

I frowned, pursed my lips irritably, and nodded. "Fine. I'll be there."

Without paying any more attention to him, I approached my car. The instant I was inside, I sucked in a quick breath and hit the steering wheel with a closed fist. It creaked in protest; the car was old, and not meant to be used for stress relief.

"The damned Primaries again," I muttered to the silence around me. "They had to choose _my_ squadron; they just had to turn _my_ life upside down. Don't know why I ever joined the Air Force." With that, I stabbed the key into the ignition and started the car. It took a few seconds, but the engine sputtered to life and I eased it forward. I wheeled it around onto the Calle de Riqueza, and the sights and sounds of a populated city surrounded me once more. The stars faded almost entirely as I drove through the lighted streets, though the sky was still clear.

"Another wonderful night," I grumbled.

- - -

The Primary HQ was a very large, modern building, all shiny smooth and metallic, sporting reflective windows so that it was near impossible to see into the building from the street. There were exactly thirty floors, I knew without counting. The design of the building itself was almost futuristic.

To the right of the main entrance, there was a keypad, a handprint recognition device, and a small LCD screen. I approached and pressed the green button on the keypad indicating that I wished to enter.

A face flickered into view on the keypad's LCD screen: Philip Teron, head of security at the Primary HQ.

"Evening, Sortija," he said in a bored voice.

"Yes, it is," I replied. "Let me in, would you?"

"You know the drill. Handprint, please."

I obliged, pressing my right hand to the handprint recognition pad, and Philip nodded. "Come on in, Sortija. The Primaries want to see you as soon as possible."

"I know," I muttered, and Philip's face vanished from the screen. I pulled the front door open and entered.

The interior of the Primary HQ was maintained at seventy degrees Fahrenheit around the clock. It was slightly warmer inside than out, but not much. I kept my jacket on as I approached the elevator.

"Alejandro!"

I turned to see Jorge Sosegado, the Estoque Squadron's number two, approaching and looking slightly nervous. "They haven't started already, have they?"

"I hope not. I just got here."

He accompanied me into the elevator. I pushed the button for the top floor with my thumb.

"What do you think it'll be this time?" he said.

"I don't know. I was watching the news, wanted to see what was going on in Sudentor; but the Head Primary specifically wanted everyone here immediately. It must be something important."

"Yeah," he agreed. There was a pause. Then, "You don't think it has anything to do with the Razgriz, do you?"

"I hope not," I said, "and you should too. Those demons have destroyed everything anybody has thrown against them. I know you want to test your skills, but there's no use in taking a test that you can't pass."

"But if we _could_, wouldn't that just be amazing?"

I looked at him. "Jorge," I said, "Ever since we started working for these Primary people, my life has been as crazy as all get out. I know you like this dramatic, crazy lifestyle, but I do not, and never have. You live as if your life were a video game. If it makes life more enjoyable for you, then by all means go ahead and continue. But I can't, all right?"

He was silent. "Sorry," he said. I look up at the ceiling. Surely we were almost there by now. "I just thought… You know, we'd be famous!"

"Jorge," I said, "The Razgriz were known as bad guys for a time, but at the moment, they're very well-liked. Shooting them down would more likely make us _in_famous. And that is not a position we want to be in."

_Ding_. The elevator doors slid open. Jorge was first out of the elevator, and I simply followed him to a room like a large boardroom, complete with a long table. The rest of the Estoque Squadron was seated in their regular spots around the table, all three of them; there were a number of other people I didn't recognize, dressed in business suits; and the Third Primary, Quince Stephens as we knew him, stood at the far end. I took my regular seat, the first seat on the side of the table near the door. Estoque 1 sat at the end of the table, to my left; and Jorge, Number 2, sat across from me. Estoque 4 sat to his left, and Estoque 5 sat to my right. The rest of the table was taken up by the unknown 'other' people.

"This is the Estoque Squadron," Primary Quince said. "Now that they are all here… Estoque," he said, addressing all of us, "You are looking at your latest potential employers."

"So they deigned to actually show themselves," Tomás Gallego, better known at Estoque 1, and even better known as 'Jefe', quipped from his spot at the end of the table. "It's not very often we actually see the faces of those who hire us to do their dirty work."

Several of the characters shifted uncomfortably at this, but most stayed still. I bit back a smile.

"That is true," Quince said, "but this instance is special. You're being employed to take on a particularly daunting mission."

"And that would be?" said Eva Navarro, Number 4.

"If I may," said a man who appeared considerably younger than the rest of his peers. Quince nodded, and the man stood up. I watched warily as he approached the far end of the table, where a laptop and projector were set up. He turned it on, and when the projector had warmed up, a strange object was displayed on the screen. I couldn't recognize it from any past experience. It was blueprints for some sort of building, or bunker, or something of that sort.

There was a subtitle at the bottom of the image: "E. Razgriz". The image on the screen, however, was most certainly _not_ any sort of plane, much less a four-plane formation.

"That's as big as Megalith was," Jorge breathed.

"It's a partially developed super weapon, produced in a joint project between various smaller nations. The project was led by Erusea. We suspect Belka was involved in the funding of the project, but we have been unable to confirm that. Who funded it is not our largest concern at the moment."

"So you want us to pull a Mobius 1 and blow the thing up?" Tomás said, tilting his head.

"Not yet," the man said, "although it may come to that. We are currently most interested in finding out who is operating the thing with Erusea, since we know they aren't the only ones. We would also like to get a confirmed report of who is funding the construction."

"We're pilots," Eva said. "We're not spies or informants."

"I know that," the man said. "We're convinced, however, that the development of the E. Razgriz cannot stay hidden much longer. They've been using the war to hold the world's attention while they build it, and their cover is almost gone. When the war ends, and the dust settles, someone is going to find this E. Razgriz thing. We want to make sure that doesn't happen before we're ready."

Were they ever going to give us a mission?

"We haven't even confirmed the location of the E. Razgriz, but we believe it is somewhere northwest of the continent of Anea. What we want to hire you for is a series of missions dealing with information about the E. Razgriz. You will, of course, be paid handsomely for your services."

"A bunch of recon crap?" Tomás said, leaning back lazily in his chair. "I don't know. Sounds pretty boring, if you ask me."

"It should be anything but," the man said. "The E. Razgriz will be heavily guarded, and virtually impossible to approach without being detected."

"Ah, I see," Tomás said. "And by 'detected', of course, you mean 'attacked'."

The man smiled. "That is a possibility in any recon mission. Now, it won't all be reconnaissance. Ultimately, if any signs of deployment are detected, you may be asked to, as you said, 'pull a Mobius 1' and destroy it. By that point, we will most likely have acquired more information, and thus, a strategy to destroy it. The E. Razgriz's deployment, obviously, is the one thing that must be avoided at all costs."

I cleared my throat. "Excuse me," I said, "but I am getting the impression that we have a choice of whether to accept this job. Am I the only one who sees this as unusual?"

"He's right," Eva said. "Ordinarily, the Primaries hand us our missions and that is that."

Primary Quince nodded. "Your potential employers insisted that you be given the opportunity to choose whether or not to accept."

"It will be dangerous," the man said by way of explanation, "and there's no guarantee that you will be properly recognized for the work, beyond the pay."

Tomás shrugged. "Lots of money for challenging work," he said. "I'm in."

I didn't want to be the odd one out, even though I wasn't too keen on the job. I weighed the pros and cons, and nodded. "Ditto for me."

Eva leaned forward, eying the projection as she said, "I'm willing."

"Yeah, I'll do it," Jorge said. Tomás turned to Diego Ramirez, Number 5, who hadn't yet said a word.

"Well, Impávido?" Tomás asked, using Diego's nickname. "Whaddaya say?"

Diego sat up. "I have no objections," he said quietly.

"Then that settles it," Tomás said. "We're all in. When do we start?"

The man smiled. "Soon, my friends. But you have time. I will warn you now, though, that you won't be spending much time in Sapin in the near future. I would suggest that you pack your bags and plan for a long absence."

"Report back here tomorrow morning at six o' clock sharp," Quince said. "You'll be leaving for our HQ in North Point at eight o' clock."

"I'm assuming you'll take care of our absences for the Air Force, as usual?" Tomás said. Quince nodded.

"As usual," he agreed.

Tomás was the first out of his seat. "Well, I'll see you guys tomorrow morning, then." And he strode toward the door and was gone. I stood up next, followed by Eva. I was out the door then, and didn't see anyone else get up or leave.

I headed for the doorway to the stairs; everyone would be taking the elevator, and I felt like being alone for a while.

"Alejandro," came Eva's voice behind me. I turned my head but kept walking.

"Yes?"

"I was wondering," she said as she hastened her pace to keep up with me, "is something wrong? You seem agitated. It's unusual."

"I'm fine," I said too soon.

"Tajo," she said, using my call sign with a frown, "if something's wrong, you ought to tell someone."

"Eva," I said, stopping before the doorway to the stairwell. "You aren't a therapist, okay? Please, just let me decide what I ought and oughtn't tell people."

She shrugged. "I'm not trying to be a therapist, I'm just concerned."

"Well, don't be." I hadn't meant to say it so sharply. She looked at me for a moment, then sighed.

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow," she said, and left. I growled to myself and yanked open the doorway. At that moment, I wouldn't have cared if I'd fallen down all thirty stories.


	2. Chapter 2

ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 2

- - -

_Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future._

_The sheltering wings of the protector…_

- - -

It was just past midnight when I arrived at my apartment, and my television was on. I flipped to the news, even though I wasn't really interested in it anymore. The broadcast was long over, and it looked as if they had moved on to other things and weren't planning to repeat themselves. One station seemed as if it might revisit the story, but again, I wasn't particularly interested. I turned off the television set and headed for my bedroom. My radio was on, and tuned to a favourite station of mine, though at the moment it wasn't music they were playing.

"We have Ricardo Mejia with us now from Lago Hermoso, Sapin, here on SLN Radio. Ricardo, what's your opinion on the conflict between Osea, Yuktobania, and Belka?"

I turned off the radio before Ricardo could respond. Then I set the alarm.

_You know, something big is about to happen._

"Big things happen every day," I replied to my own thoughts.

_Something bigger than everyday occurrences._

I said nothing as I slipped my jacket off and tossed it onto a chair in the corner. I fell onto the bed with the rest of my clothes on, and stared up at the ceiling. My mind eventually slowed, and then my eyes drifted shut.

And the world faded.

- - -

When the world returned, I was considerably more well-rested, although I would have preferred to _keep_ resting. Instead, I turned the alarm off and swung my legs out over the edge of the bed. It was four o' clock in the morning, leaving me enough time to shower and eat and still be back at the Primary HQ by six.

Long story short, when five o' clock rolled around, I was leaving the apartment, and by five minutes to six o' clock, the elevator was halfway up the building.

_Ding._

The elevator doors slid open, and within moments I had entered the room we'd been in the previous night. Three minutes until 'six o' clock sharp'. Eva was already here, as were Jorge and Diego. Tomás had yet to arrive. First Primary Karen Evans stood at the far end of the table. No one else was present. I kept looking at my watch until, the very instant six o'clock was displayed, Tomás entered the room.

"Well?" he said. "Are we going to get going or what?"

"Wonderful timing, Jefe," Karen said dryly. Unlike the man of the previous evening, the Primaries had their own setup for the projection screen; she touched something on a wristband she wore, and the screen flickered to life, crystal clear. On it was displayed a world map. Sapin was highlighted, with a bright red dot centred on Gran Rugido, our current location. It blinked for an instant and then was still.

"You are all headed for the Newfield Islands in southwest North Point. You'll be flying there yourselves. You will be landing at an air base of ours in Farbanti, Erusea to refuel. The people there work for us, obviously, so you won't need to worry about the Eruseans delaying you. Our people have been instructed to get you in and out of the area as quickly as possible. We expect you to have reached the Newfield Islands by nightfall. We expect this to be a simple trip, but we've been informed that the Eruseans and their allies are keeping a close guard on the E. Razgriz. If they so much as suspect that you might know about it, they will not hesitate to attack you. So you're being instructed to keep your radio chatter off that subject, and to complete the trip as quickly as you can. Just don't raise any suspicions."

"Sounds easy enough," Tomás said.

"We're leaving at eight, right?" Eva said. "If we're to get into our planes by then, we ought to leave soon."

Primary Karen nodded. "I simply needed to relay the instructions to you. You're free to go now."

- - -

"Ah! Haven't been in the sky for days!" Tomás said once we were all up in the sky and in proper formation. Everyone flew F-14Ds, by Tomás' choice, and the large engines had us all travelling at Mach 1 about three minutes after we'd gotten off the ground.

"I know what you mean," said Eva. "Feels like coming home."

I understood the sentiment, but lately it seemed like all I ever wanted to do was to get _out_ of the sky. Why was I so negative lately?

"Sorry we couldn't get a passenger jet on such short notice," came the voice of Primary Quince, "But at least this method will be faster."

"You won't hear any complaints from this end," Tomás responded instantly.

"That's good," Quince said. "Just stay on course, and remember what you're supposed to be doing."

"Gotcha," Tomás said. "Should we contact you when we reach Farbanti?"

"Please."

"All right. We'll get in touch with you then. Hey, Tajo, are you flying on my right wing or what? Stay in formation, please."

"Sorry," I said, and pushed my plane back into the formation from where I'd been falling behind.

"You know," Jorge said, "if this job goes well—"

"Hey," Tomás interrupted. "We aren't supposed to be broadcasting it across the radio."

"I'm not," Jorge said. "It's just that if this job goes well, we could get a little more respect from the Primaries. You know?"

"I guess. Not that I'm wanting in that respect." Tomás yawned loudly. "Can't believe we have to fly there ourselves. If the Primaries have so much money and influence, they ought to be able to get a passenger jet. Hell, they ought to have their own. Seems odd, anyway, that we'd have to do the flying."

"I thought you said you wouldn't complain," I said. "Thought you liked flying."

"I'm not, and I do; it's just odd."

"Tell you something else that's odd," Eva said suddenly, "my radar seems to be on the fritz. I'm picking up bogey aircraft, and more than one, but they aren't staying in one place. Seems more like some sort of jamming than actual enemies." I checked my radar, but it was clean.

"Maybe it's a fluke," Tomás said. "I'm not picking up anything."

"I've got several hits on my radar, too, and it sounds like the same stuff Filo has got," Diego said.

My radar was still clean, but I kept one eye on it.

"Casco, how about you?" Tomás said, his tone abruptly sobered.

"I can't tell," Jorge said. "I think my radar's out."

"Well, hell," Tomás said. "I'll bet the mechanics were slacking off. Wouldn't be the first time it's happ—_Hey_!"

I saw the missile on my radar before I saw the actual thing, and it was headed straight for Tomás, from directly ahead. Tomás pulled up sharply and the missile shot by beneath him.

"Who the hell shot that?" Tomás said. "My radar's still clean."

A single plane appeared on my radar, at the farthest edge, directly ahead. It wasn't flashing around like Eva had described her radar hits; it was just coming closer, an ordinary plane.

Jorge spoke then: "My radar's back online. I think it was the mechanics' fault, but I'm getting the same stuff as Filo and Dolencia."

As soon as he finished, I mentioned mine. "I've got a hit on my radar, but it seems fairly ordinary. No suspicious jamming-like qualities. Just a single plane."

"All right," Tomás said. "All planes, max throttle. Let's get this over with, then contact the Primaries to see if they're aware of this."

The squadron moved as one, all simultaneously increasing speed. My radar blip came closer and closer, until I would have expected to see it in front of us. I couldn't see a thing, though, except for Tomás' plane in front of me, and the rest of the squadron around me. Tomás came over the radio.

"Filo, your radar still acting up?"

"Yes."

"Casco?"

"Same thing."

"Dolencia?"

"No change."

"Tajo?"

"Still just the one," I said. I rolled my plane to the side but stayed in formation, trying to see if perhaps the plane on my radar was beneath us. I was looking in the wrong direction, though. Just as I rolled my plane back over, I saw a plane, coming at us from above with lightning speed. The thing strafed Tomás' plane with gunfire and disappeared below. I hadn't even been able to discern the model.

"All planes, attack formation!" Tomás said. "The enemy is at least one SU-47 Berkut."

"Filo, roger."

"Casco, roger."

"Dolencia, roger."

"Tajo, roger," I added at the end, and rolled my plane over, pulling up so that I would angle my nose toward the ground very sharply. Everyone went after the mysterious plane at once. I saw it flying beneath us, and then it pulled up to fly above us. Whoever it was, he hadn't let up on the afterburners once since I'd seen him. He flew out in front of us, high above, and I pulled up to go after him. All the Estoque planes had the same idea.

"Switch to XLAAs," Tomás said. He was rewarded with four simultaneous "Roger" responses. "Everyone in firing range?" Again, all affirmatives. "Let 'im have it." Five XLAAs took off at once, and I almost thought the plane was no more, but at the last instant, it pulled up and came back at us, the missiles rocketing by beneath. He came at us at top speed, releasing more than one missile, but none of them hit home on any of our planes.

"Who are you?" came an unfamiliar voice over the radio.

"You first," said Tomás. "Am I speaking with the SU-47 flying circles around my squadron?"

"You better believe it. Arrowhead's my call sign. So, I ask again, who are you?"

"This is Estoque squadron."

"You guys are good. I've never come across a squadron of less than eight planes that gave me this much trouble."

"Trouble? You've been fighting us for under a minute."

"Anybody else would be dead by now."

"Really, now."

The dogfight between this plane and our entire squadron had been continuing this whole time, but now the plane swung into position behind me, and I couldn't seem to get him off me.

_"No, they weren't supposed to come in contact! It's been contaminated!"_

What? I lost my concentration for just an instant, and I saw the trail of smoke as he loosed a missile at me.

"Tajo, missile! Pull up!" It was Tomás. I obeyed and yanked my plane up. An F-14D, however, is not the most agile of planes, by any stretch of imagination. The whole thing quaked as the missile hit, and I had to struggle to keep control of the aircraft. It didn't want to fly straight, and I realized after looking back that a large piece of my tail had been blown off.

_"Damn. Just terminate them all. Initiate a full-scale system restore."_

_"At what point?"_

_"Put it at oh-one-hundred hours this morning."_

He was still behind me, but the voices were distracting. My tail wasn't functioning properly, at least, what was left of it. I couldn't yaw or move the nose of the plane up or down. In a desperate attempt to avoid a second missile shot, I rolled onto my side and pulled the throttle all the way down. My plane stalled, and the nose angled downward. The other plane flashed by overhead, his attention diverted to Eva, who'd begun shooting at him.

I was beginning to wonder how I'd pull out of this dive, but a second later, everything jolted as if I'd taken a second missile hit, and I blacked out.

- - -

When the world returned, I was considerably more well-rested, although I would have preferred to _keep_ resting. Instead, I turned the alarm off and swung my legs out over the edge of the bed. It was four o' clock in the morning, leaving me enough time to shower and eat and still be back at the Primary HQ by six.

Long story short, when five o' clock rolled around, I was leaving the apartment, and by five minutes to six o' clock, the elevator was halfway up the building.

_Ding._

The elevator doors slid open, and within moments I had entered the room we'd been in the previous night. Three minutes until 'six o' clock sharp'. Eva was already here, as were Jorge and Diego. Tomás had yet to arrive. First Primary Karen Evans stood at the far end of the table. No one else was present. I kept looking at my watch until, the very instant six o'clock was displayed, Tomás entered the room.

"Well?" he said. "Are we going to get going or what?"

"Wonderful timing, Jefe," Karen said dryly. Unlike the man of the previous evening, the Primaries had their own setup for the projection screen; she touched something on a wristband she wore, and the screen flickered to life, crystal clear. On it was displayed a world map. Sapin was highlighted, with a bright red dot centred on Gran Rugido, our current location. It blinked for an instant and then was still.

"You are all headed for the Newfield Islands in southwest North Point. You'll be flying there yourselves. You will be landing at an air base of ours in Farbanti, Erusea to refuel. The people there work for us, obviously, so you won't need to worry about the Eruseans delaying you. Our people have been instructed to get you in and out of the area as quickly as possible."

"Hold on a second," I said suddenly. Something seemed odd about all this, but I couldn't quite discern what it was.

"Is there a problem, Alejandro?" Karen said, looking suddenly suspicious. Odd, that.

I paused. "No. I just… I just feel a little off."

"Do you need medical attention?"

I shook my head. "No. Sorry. It's nothing." She nodded and turned back to the projection screen.

"You are all headed for the Newfield Islands in southwest North Point. You'll be flying there yourselves. You will be landing at an air base of ours in Farbanti, Erusea to refuel. The people—"

"Wait," I interrupted, "you just said all this, didn't you?"

She looked at me oddly. "Are you feeling all right, Alejandro?"

I stared at her. "Yes," I said. "I'm fine."

She shook her head and turned back to the projection screen again.

"You are all headed for the Newfield Islands in southwest North Point. You'll be flying there yourselves…"

I pondered as she spoke. I knew she'd repeated herself already. And the whole situation smacked of déjà vu, now that I thought of it. But I didn't know what else to do, so I let it go for now.

- - -

"Ah! Haven't been in the sky for days!" Tomás said once we were all up in the sky and in proper formation. Everyone flew F-14Ds, by Tomás' choice, despite my protests that we ought to take more capable fighter aircraft.

"I know what you mean," said Eva. "Feels like coming home."

"Sorry we couldn't get a passenger jet on such short notice," came the voice of Primary Quince, "But at least this method will be faster."

"You won't hear any complaints from this end," Tomás responded instantly.

"That's good," Quince said. "Just stay on course, and remember what you're supposed to be doing."

"Gotcha," Tomás said. "Should we contact you when we reach Farbanti?"

"Please."

"All right. We'll get in touch with you then. Hey, Tajo, are you flying on my right wing or what? Stay in formation, please."

I wasn't about to apologize this time; I hadn't been falling back. I was pushing the throttle up, sure that a single enemy plane was about to appear on my radar, though I couldn't have said why. I was sure he had something to do with this bizarre feeling of déjà vu.

"Tajo, what are you doing?" Tomás said.

"Sir, I'm picking up a single enemy plane on my radar," I lied.

"What? My radar's clean. How about the rest of you?"

"Nothing," Eva said.

"Same here," replied Jorge.

"I'm not picking up anything like that," Diego responded.

"What?" I said. "But, Eva, you…" The radar blip wasn't appearing. I suddenly felt very foolish. "I think my radar was malfunctioning. Sorry." I fell back into formation.

"You shouldn't zoom off like that even if there is a plane," Tomás said. "You ought to know that."

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry."

_"That's no coincidence. There's been another error."_

_"Find the error and fix it. We can't afford to make these kinds of mistakes this late in the development stage."_

_"Sir, could the 'error' actually be a product of its evolutional capabilities?"_

_"…You may be right. Look into it.."_

"What was that?" I said. "Is someone else broadcasting on this radio frequency?"

"What are you talking about, Tajo?" Tomás sounded almost irritated now. "First radar mistakes, now you're hearing things over the radio? I'll bet the mechanics were slacking off. Wouldn't be the first time it's happened."

_"It was us."_

_"That's not possible."_

_"There aren't any other factors in the simulation. What else could it have been?"_

_"The whole thing seems to be full of glitches today. It'll be fixed soon."_

"Sir," I said, "I'm definitely hearing multiple distinctive voices. Aren't the rest of you picking this up?"

"Negative," came Eva's response. Jorge and Diego replied in kind.

"I'm not imagining this," I said.

_"Is the link rebuilding itself? Hell, they'll come into contact again!"_

_"Lock it down, quickly now, before we have to do another system restore."_

_"At this rate, we'll have to reboot the entire system."_

"Tell you something else that's odd," Eva said suddenly, "my radar seems to be on the fritz. I'm picking up bogey aircraft, and more than one, but they aren't staying in one place. Seems more like some sort of jamming than actual enemies." I checked my radar, but it was clean.

"Maybe it's a fluke," Tomás said. "I'm not picking up anything."

"I've got several hits on my radar, too, and it sounds like the same stuff Filo's got," Diego said.

My radar was still clean, but I kept one eye on it.

"Casco, how about you?" Tomás said, his tone abruptly sobered.

"I can't tell," Jorge said. "I think my radar's out."

"Well, hell," Tomás said. "The mechanics must have been slacking off working on all of our planes, not just yours, Ta—_Hey_!"

I saw the missile on my radar before I saw the actual thing, and it was headed straight for Tomás, from directly ahead. Tomás pulled up sharply and the missile shot by beneath him.

"Who the hell shot that?" Tomás said. "My radar's still clean."

I knew it the instant I saw it; a single enemy blip on the radar.

_"Damn it! The link is re-established. Can you cut them off?"_

_"Not without damaging the system. We might just let the scenario play out, and work the link out of the system gradually. Otherwise, another system restore is the only way. And I've a suspicion the link would just re-establish itself again, unless we can find the error in the system and fix it."_

_"Fine, let it be, but we've got to figure out why the system is going haywire like this."_

I mentioned the radar blip instantly.

"Clave," I said, addressing Tomás, "I've got an enemy plane on radar, in a stable position. Doesn't seem like any sort of odd jamming. It's directly ahead, and approaching fast. Believed to be an SU-47," I added, hoping he wouldn't think it odd. "I think it's flying high above, as well."

"Got it," Tomás said. We all angled our planes upward and as I expected, the plane soon came into view ahead. It loosed a few missiles and then swung away from us. We all chased each other around the sky for about half a minute, and then a not-quite-unfamiliar voice spoke over the radio. I was sure I'd heard all of this before.

"Who are you?"

"You first," said Tomás. "Am I speaking with the SU-47 flying circles around my squadron?"

"You better believe it. Arrowhead's my call sign. So, I ask again, who are you?"

"This is Estoque squadron."

"You guys are good. I've never come across a squadron of less than eight planes that gave me this much trouble."

"Trouble? You've been fighting us for under a minute."

"Anybody else would be dead by now."

"Really, now."

The dogfight between this plane and our entire squadron had been continuing this whole time, but now the plane swung into position behind me. For an instant, I was filled with a fear I'd never felt before. It was as if I'd done this before, only I _hadn't_ escaped the last time I'd done this. In a sudden burst of inspiration, I rolled onto my side and pulled the throttle all the way down. My plane stalled, and the nose angled downward. The other plane flashed by overhead, his attention diverted to Eva, who'd begun shooting at him.

I pushed the throttle up again and flew up to meet the other plane.

"Hey," I said. "Who are you, really? And why are you attacking us?"

"I told you, I'm Arrowhead," he said, sounding the tiniest bit uncomfortable. "And I'm attacking you because I've been ordered to. That's what pilots do. They follow their orders."

"Uh-huh. What country do you fly for?"

"I dunno if I ought to tell you," he said, and it sounded as if he was chuckling. "But I don't see what it would hurt. I'm a member of the Free Erusian Republic."

"Really, now," Tomás said. "We've no bones to pick with you, Arrowhead. What have you been told about us? I'm sure it's a misunderstanding. We're just moving ourselves from Point A to Point B, we're not attacking Erusea or anything like that."

Arrowhead laughed. "Really? Are you sure your mission has nothing to do with the E. Razgriz?"

"I don't even know what the hell that is, but if it's been named after the demon of the North Sea, I want no part of it," Tomás said. He hadn't missed a beat.

"Uh-huh," Arrowhead said. "Well, it isn't my job to decide whether or not to shoot you all down; my job is just to shoot you all down. Sorry if it really was a misunderstanding."

_"All right, we're ready. Input the access code, quickly now. The system is about to be totally compromised."_

Arrowhead pulled into position behind Eva's plane. I moved as fast as I could, loosing a missile at him, and he dodged them but stayed on Eva's tail.

_"Is it in? All right, patch in the update. Quickly, quickly!"_

_"Done. It's in."_

I was sure he would fire at her, but suddenly he pulled away and began to head northeast, back toward the direction from which he had initially come.

"Maybe we'll get to play later," he said. "I've been given new orders, part of which requires that you guys go free."

"Gee, thanks," Tomás said. "Next time we meet, though, you'd better be ready for a real fight, 'cause we won't be flying these winged washtubs."

Arrowhead laughed. "I hear you. I hope we do get to fight each other. You guys are the first challenge I've had in a long time." His plane was out of sight.

"Don't know what the hell that was about," Tomás muttered. "Are our radars clear?"

Everyone replied in the affirmative. Even Eva's jammed radar was back to normal. A few moments later, even Arrowhead's plane vanished from my radar.

We flew on in silence, and after a time, I began to hear the mysterious voices again.

_"Glad that worked."_

_"It didn't, not entirely. Look at the sensors. External auditory senses on number three are still functioning at near-full capacity."_

_"That can be fixed. At least the system wasn't entirely compromised."_

_"True. Reloading number four after an internal termination would have been a real task."_

_"What about Ace? Are his main system parameters back down to acceptable levels?"_

_"They're lowering rapidly. Should be back to normal in a few minutes. It's probably just the proximity to the others that's causing the discrepancies."_

_"Have we located the source of the error yet? We need to disable number three's external auditory senses before it disrupts the system again."_

_"It isn't that big of a problem."_

_"It isn't that big of a problem? You idiot, number three is the second-most important project we're working on right now. It's still in the developmental stage, and a problem now could set the whole project back weeks, even months. Do you want that on your shoulders?"_

_"That isn't the point. What I'm saying is that I'd rather have his external senses being unpredictable as opposed to an all-out system failure. At least this can be fixed."_

"Estoque 1 to all planes." For a moment, I hadn't realized it was Tomás. "Let's make this a race. We want to get to Farbanti quickly, right? Let's take it a step further. The Erusian coastline will be our finish line. The last plane across the coastline has to buy drinks for the rest of the squadron when we land in Farbanti."

"I'm game," Jorge said.

"Yeah, it might ease the monotony," Eva agreed. I sighed.

"Sure," was all I said. Diego didn't say anything, but when we all sped up, he wasn't far behind.

_"What are they doing now?"_

_"Don't worry about it. It isn't a system error. They are only human, after all."_

I tuned out the voices. After all, I had a race to win.


	3. Chapter 3

ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 3

- - -

_Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future._

_The sheltering wings of the protector…_

- - -

_In a highly secretive facility, underneath Farbanti_

Christof leant back in his chair, keeping one eye on the monitoring screens. The one he to which was paying the most attention was labelled "ES-7-GSM"

"I really hope the system is done yanking our chains," Friedrich said from beside Christof. His eyes were intent upon a group of meters in the lower right corner of the primary monitor.

"Same here, but somehow, I doubt it." Christof pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'm going to go and get some coffee. Any requests?"

"Just get two of whatever you're getting." He moved in closer to the monitor as Christof left the room. Then Friedrich glanced over at another monitor, labelled "#3-E/I-SM". The monitor was filled with fluctuating bar graph-like images. Several of them were quite stable, but several of the bars were fluctuating between extremely low values and extremely high ones.

"Why" Friedrich murmured. "Why aren't your audio isolators functioning like the others'? Are you already so advanced that you've become able to bypass them?" He looked back to the first monitor. "Why haven't the others reached this level? When will they? And for that matter," he added, turning back to the monitor before him, "how long will it be before you can completely bypass all the isolators?"

He leant back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. It was immaculate, like the rest of this facility, except for a tiny water stain in the corner near the exit. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly.

"There's something about number 3," Christof said suddenly from behind Friedrich, handing down a paper cup of steaming coffee. He took his seat. "His external auditory senses aren't a mistake of the machinery."

"I was thinking the same thing," Friedrich said. "They were all meant to grow, learn, constantly improve, but number 3 is developing much faster. I don't know if the others will ever reach the level he's already at, and he's not even done growing."

"Well, they were all created using a different system interface, in hopes that one of them would be successful. Perhaps number 3 is the successful one." Christof sipped his coffee and eyed the "#3-E/I-SM" monitor. "I don't understand one thing, though," he said suddenly. After the system restore, his memory cache wasn't completely reset to the designated timeframe. He retained shells of memory from before we restored the system."

"A glitch, perhaps? A mistake?"

"I don't know… Maybe, but I don't think so. The entire system was restored to two o' clock in the morning. That should have included number 3 and his memory cache, but it didn't. All the other experiments—Numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5--and Ace were restored properly. Even Ace didn't retain any memory shells, Friedrich. And yet somehow number 3 did."

"You're not saying that number 3's program is better than Ace's…?"

"I don't think it is. Not yet. But it will be. Remember, they are growing, learning things. Ace was built to begin, and exist, in near perfection. Number 3 was created only to grow and improve. He will never stop improving."

Friedrich nodded. "Whoever created this program was a genius."

- - -

I had lowered my altitude and was flying at just over Mach 2 across the surface of the relatively smooth waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The last time I had checked my radar, I was in the lead, but for the past hour, I had been trading places with Tomás. I spared a glance at the radar search screen. Tomás, not deigning to fly so close to the water, was flying at an ordinary altitude of about five thousand feet, and, according to my radar, was about fifty feet behind me. I couldn't push the throttle up any further.

"Having fun eating my afterburner exhaust?" I said over the radio. Tomás laughed incredulously.

"That doesn't sound like a proper thing to say to your flight lead," he said in a mock stern voice. "After all, when you think bout it, I've got three people eating _my_ afterburner exhaust too."

"Hey," Eva said. "I'm not eating anybody's exhaust."

"You're only allowed to say that if you're close enough to see on radar, Filo," Tomás said, and Eva laughed.

"Hey, I think I see beach!" Tomás said suddenly. I wanted to fly up and see, but it would only increase the distance I had to fly, so I stayed where I was and just concentrated on keeping my plane straight. In the corner of my eye, I saw Eva's radar blip catching up. I pushed on the throttle, even though I knew it was at maximum power.

Then, Eva said something that made my blood run cold for just an instant.

"Tajo, Jefe! Bandits at six o' clock!"

"What?" I pulled up sharply and wheeled around, but I didn't see anything. I saw Tomás' plane do the same. Then Eva rocketed past the both of us, laughing.

A few seconds later, "Score! That's the beach, boys!"

Tomás and I said the exact same curse word at the exact same time, and we both spun around simultaneously, speeding our planes toward the beach, where Eva circled triumphantly. I felt a sudden burst of speed, and Tomás fell behind. I crossed over the coastline not half a second before Tomás.

"Third place!" he moaned in good humour. "How did I pull that off!"

"Sorry," Eva said. "I cheated. But it worked, so I'm satisfied."

I'd been laughing since I'd crossed over the coastline. We all waited, flying circles over the beach, and a few seconds later, Diego flashed past us, Jorge close on his heels.

"Ah-ha, I think that was Dolencia in front, wouldn't you agree?" I said.

"Nod nod, that's what it looked like to me," Tomás said.

Jorge sighed audibly over the radio.

"I still can't get over what Eva did," I said. "That _was_ pretty funny, you've got to admit."

"In all seriousness, it wasn't very professional and isn't something you should joke about," Tomás said, "but I'm only warning you because I have a responsibility to. Don't think I'm yelling at you, Filo."

"I know you're not, and I do understand," she said. "Now, Farbanti should be due north of us, and not far. Ten minutes, maybe less if we do it at max throttle. Tomás, you have the coordinates for the base, right?"

"Yeah. It's roughly in the southeast corner of the city." His plane swung around to face north, and everyone did the same.

Then the radio buzzed for a second, and the voice of Primary Quinn addressed us.

"You've reached the coast, I see. Stay on course for Farbanti. As you know, we're officially at peace, so you're broadcasting friendly IFF signals to the Erusians. So don't worry about their automatic defence systems or anything of that nature. They won't attack you."

"Roger, Primary," Tomás said. "On course for Farbanti Branch Primary HQ. Who's meeting us there?"

"Seventh and Eighth Primaries Paul Gitacr and Reba Wilson are currently stationed at the Farbanti Branch Primary HQ. They'll be meeting and greeting you, and sending you on your merry way within an hour of landing."

"Sounds good to me," Tomás said. "I'll talk to you later, Primary."

"Roger" was all Quinn said.

We fell back into the standard formation and flew silently for a few minutes. I enjoyed the silence, especially the lack of any disembodied voices, as we flew all the way to the outskirts of Farbanti. Essentially, we'd been over the outskirts of Farbanti when we'd crossed over the beach, but we figured the first 'bigger' buildings we saw would mark what we called the 'outskirts'. They weren't skyscrapers yet, not this far out, but Farbanti was a big city, and there _would_ be skyscrapers.

I almost wished we could talk about the mission over the radio. Not this mission in particular, but all of the ones I knew we would probably be called upon to perform before we went back to Gran Rugido. I really wanted to discuss with the rest of them as to the nature of the mysterious E. Razgriz.

"Clave," Eva said after a while of flying over the city, as it grew higher and higher. "We ought to be near the HQ now."

"Yeah," he said, "I've got it on my digital map. All planes, follow me." We stayed in near-perfect formation as his plane arced smoothly in about a forty-degree angle, and soon we could see the runway in the distance.

"Farbanti Branch Primary HQ, come in," Tomás said after a few seconds.

"We can see and hear you, Estoque," came the response. "No need for formalities. You're already cleared to land. Please make the identification easier for all of us, and come down in numerical order."

"Roger," Tomás said. "Glad to know we've got friends bringing us in. I'm coming down now. We'll be landing in quick succession, but don't worry, this is a well-trained group. We won't be crashing into each other."

"Then come on in anytime."

It took about three minutes from that moment until the point when all the planes were safely on the ground. Each of us had come in about twenty seconds behind the last plane. We were helped out of the planes, which were taken away for maintenance, and escorted to the biggest building in sight, a three- or maybe four-story building that covered a lot of square feet.

"Welcome to Farbanti," was the greeting we received from a man as soon as we entered. The dark colours of his uniform, clean and crisp, identified him as a Primary.

"Glad to be here," Tomás said, extending a hand. "Paul, I hope?"

"There's only one other Primary here, and my name isn't Reba," Paul said, shaking Tomás' hand with a smile.

"We aren't staying long, as you know," Tomás said, "but one of us owes the rest of us a round of drinks—non-alcoholic, of course, since we're on the job—so if you've got a place that would facilitate that, I'm sure we'd all think very highly of you."

Paul chuckled and led the way. Within minutes we were within a very professional-looking bar, everyone eager to find a seat and get off their feet. The man running the place was behind the bar and looking up at a television, on which was displayed a soccer game. The barkeep glanced at us as we entered, then turned back to the television.

"I'll leave you to your work, since I've got to get back to mine," Paul said. "Reba would probably like to say hello, so make sure you find her before you leave. It's been a pleasure," he said, and left after everyone had given him a proper 'goodbye'.

"Now," Tomás said with a grin, "be nice, everyone. Don't just order the most expensive thing on the menu."

"That won't be hard," I pointed out, "since the most expensive thing on the menu is probably booze."

"S'got vodka in it," Eva said, squinting at a menu she'd pulled off the bar, "so yeah, nobody's getting that. Why don't we just all get a cola?"

Jorge glanced up at the menu display, then over to Eva. "Cola's probably the only thing here that doesn't have alcohol in it, anyway," he said, frowning.

"Amazing how much booze they sell in a place where most of the employees aren't allowed to drink," Tomás said dryly after staring at the menu display for a few seconds and determining that Jorge was right.

"Excuse me, barkeep," Tomás said then. The man turned and approached. He was of an extremely nondescript appearance. He looked Erusian in origin, but when he spoke, he didn't have an accent.

"So, what'll it be?" he said.

"Colas for everyone, I think. That'd be _cinco, por favor._"

The barkeep nodded and it wasn't long before we all had our drinks, in tall glasses with a bit too much ice for my tastes. Jorge stuck a straw into his soda. We all chatted as we drank.

"I'm assuming it's safe to talk since we're on the ground," Tomás said. "What do you guys think the E. Razgriz really is? Think it really is just another Megalith?"

"I'll bet it's worse," Jorge said. "I did a lot of research on the war in Usea, and I know a lot about Megalith from the military records we got from Erusea and the country of Usea after the war. If those blueprints had accurate scales, then the E. Razgriz is roughly the same size as the Megalith. Technology since then has come a long way, and something the same size can pack a much bigger punch."

"You may be right," Tomás said. "I wonder, though, if it might be totally different from Megalith. Megalith was just a bunch of lasers and some really big missiles, right?"

"Essentially, yeah," Jorge agreed.

"What if this E. Razgriz is totally, completely, and wholly different? What if it's not lasers and missiles? What if it's… I don't know, like Stonehenge? Or the Excalibur chemical laser facility, from the Belkan War?"

"I didn't see any power source on those blueprints, at least not anything big enough to fuel a chemical laser on that scale," Jorge said. "But then again, I doubt they showed us all the blueprints."

"Yeah," Tomás said. "For all we know, that might not have even been one percent of all the blueprints."

"Wait," I said suddenly, "Do they even _have _all of the blueprints? We're talking about a massive facility being constructed in secret by a foreign country—they wouldn't just _give_ away the blueprints. Whatever avenue we used to get them, how do we know we have all of them?"

"We probably don't," Tomás said. "But then, that's what we're out here for, isn't it? To gather information on the E. Razgriz."

Diego got up and headed over to a window that looked out on the runway. "You can see into the hangar from here," he remarked. "All of our planes, too—they're in clear view."

Eva looked over from the bar. She was silent for a few seconds, then said softly, "They're beautiful, aren't they?"

"I guess," Tomás said. "In my opinion, the SU-37 Terminator is the sexiest plane in existence."

"That must be why you fly it so much, eh?" I said.

"I don't mean the models," Eva said. "Just… the airplanes, out there."

We all looked out the window from the bar, except Diego, who still stood by the window. Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

"I know what you mean," I said after I decided the pause had gone on too long. "Those chunks of metal and plastic and glass… To anybody else, planes, but to us…"

"…Freedom," Tomás finished in a low voice.

Just then, the mood was ruined when a loud slurping noise came from Jorge's direction. Everybody stared at him until he pulled his mouth off the straw. "Sorry," he said. "Soda's empty."

Tomás was laughing already. Everybody else pushed their half-empty drinks back onto the bar. Jorge left a bill on the bar, a bit more than what the drinks had cost, and we headed out to find Primary Reba.


	4. Chapter 4

-1ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 4

- - -

_Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future._

_The sheltering wings of the protector…_

- - -

We found Reba observing the maintenance of the planes, and exchanged brief greetings. She informed us that she'd been in touch with the Gran Rugido Branch HQ, and that there had been no change in plans. Our planes were ready to return to the skies by the time we'd finished our brief chat, so we got back into the air with minimal delay. The lack of sleep, though, was getting to me, and by the time we had reached a point where we didn't have to concentrate so much on piloting, it hit me like a well-aimed brick.

- - -

_I'm wading through a pool of thick black liquid. I can't see what's beneath the surface, but I can feel something like seaweed wrapping and unwrapping itself about my bare feet. Above me is the night sky, writhing with a vast storm cloud, though no storm has yet broken. The wind is whipping this way and that. I'm trying to keep my balance. I know I can do it. I know that I am capable of getting out of this noxious slime._

_There were four, I remember—four others, trapped as I am. They are gone. Gone, but not dead. They are out there, somewhere, but they are beyond help. All I can do is try to escape._

_The wind grows stronger by the second, as if some unseen force is deliberately trying to topple me. But I will not be pushed into the black slime, because I know it will consume me utterly._

_I must stay upright, must not let myself falter…_

_Must… Must not fall…_

_"Demente!"_

- - -

"I think we ought to test the programs, you know, see how much they've grown since their inception." Friedrich gnawed on the end of a plastic spoon as he proposed his idea to a dubious Christof.

"The Primaries haven't authorized anything like that," Christof said.

"It won't hurt the programs or the experiment. After all, even if anything does go wrong, a system restore will fix it. I doubt it'll come to that, though."

Christof threw his hands in the air. "My shift's over in ten minutes anyway. You can do it on Dieter's time."

Friedrich grinned. "Fine, I can wait."

- - -

"Demente! Sortija, are you listening to me?"

I shook myself violently.

"Yeah. Sorry, sir."

"Well?"

"…Well, what, sir?"

He sighed. "I asked you what you think about… Oh, never mind. Hey, check out that scenery."

We were flying over a desert.

"Whiskey corridor," Jorge murmured. "One of the most important battles of the Usean Conflict was fought here. Look, that's Goldberg Crater!"

He flew off to get a closer look, and circled a few times over the crater.

"…us to shoot them down? Please reconfirm that order." It hadn't been a familiar voice. There were no unexpected planes on radar. Was the statement referring to us?

"Consider it reconfirmed. Commence the operation."

"Jorge!" Tomás barked. "Back into formation. All planes, be on alert."

Jorge raced back and we continued, but no planes appeared on radar.

Then we found out why.

"Captain, stealth fighters at our six o' clock!" Eva said suddenly, and swung around to fly back towards them. It was a flight of six Black Widow IIs. I followed Eva's example and didn't look to see if the others did the same. I latched onto the enemy farthest to my right—their left—and took off as the plane detached from its formation to evade me. It wasn't difficult to get a missile lock on, but I was loathe to fire anything until I knew I would hit.

"This is Dolencia. I shot one down. All Estoque planes; these aren't Erusian fighters," Diego said. "I just got a good look at the emblem, and they've got Belkan flags on them."

"They're Belkan?" Tomás said. "Are you sure? That doesn't make a lot of sense."

"I'm positive," Diego said. "I saw it clearly. There was another logo, sort of like a letter, but not in any alphabet I recognize."

I'd almost lined up a perfect shot during the chatter, but at that moment, the YF-23A rolled onto its back and was gone. I tried to follow it, but before I knew it, the thing was behind me.

"Filo speaking, I got one," Eva said. "Enemy radar spike, Tajo," she remarked.

"Thanks," I replied dryly, "I was aware of that."

I was peripherally aware of my plane's variable geometry wings sweeping outward as I slowed and pulled up, doing it as sharply as this old plane could manage. I lost the other plane, though I soon realized it was because Diego had taken off after it. I chose another target and took off. I decided not to be so careful with this one. As soon as I had a half-decent shot, I let loose two missiles. They both connected, and I saw the plane go down in an intense eruption of flame. I didn't have any time to spare for admiring the fireworks, though.

"This is Tajo. I shot one down. Three left." I pushed the throttle up.

"Damn, you guys are leaving me behind!" Tomás said. "Come here, you Belkan scumbag. I can't let my wingmen grab all the glory."

I flew out to gain some distance, then came back and examined the situation before I went in. Tomás was wrapped up in a duel on the perimeter of the miniature furball, and Jorge was with him; Eva was on the left edge of my peripheral vision, and heading towards the right, presumably toward another enemy plane which was just right of my blind spot. Diego was also heading for that plane, but from below. It took me a moment to locate the third enemy, but when I saw it, I pushed up the throttle and aimed for it. The plane was to the left of Tomás, but much further out. I supposed he had probably flown out, as I had, to gain distance and observe the situation. I wondered if he'd noticed me and had the same thought.

"Three of our planes are down, including the flight lead," an unfamiliar voice said. "That puts you in charge, Blutbad 2."

"Roger. We're going to have to revise the formation. I'm engaged with their flight lead and another plane. The enemy female pilot is after Blutbad 6 now, and there's another coming at him. He's going to have some trouble. Blutbad 4, are you going for the straggler?"

"Yes," the first one responded. "And by the looks of things, he's coming for me as well."

"Roger that, Blutbad 4. Good luck."

"Good luck to both of you as well."

"Hey," said a third voice, and I assumed it was the plane Eva was after, "You were right, I'm having a lot of trouble over here. If you see an opportunity, help me out."

"We're all kind of busy, but if we see an opportunity, we'll try to oblige you. Make it easier on us, and drag them this way."

"Thanks. I'll try."

The aiming reticule turned red and locked onto the plane on my nose, and I instantly let loose a missile, not much caring whether it hit. The stealth fighter whipped up and out of sight, dodging the missile with plenty of time to spare, but I wasn't about to let him get behind me. I kept my eyes on the plane, careful not to lose him as I tried to pull my nose around to aim at him.

"This is Dolencia. Filo and I just bagged one—I can't tell which missile hit first, but we both got 'im. Who needs help?"

Tomás responded first. "This guy's giving me a run for my money, but I think I can take him. After all—we're flying circles around _each other_. Looks like Sortija's enemy is flying circles around _him_."

"Gee, thanks for the encouragement," I said dryly.

"We'll split up," Diego said. "Filo, go and help Tomás. I'll get the other one."

Then came the enemy voices, perfectly timed. "Blutbad 6 is down. Another one is coming after me, but I haven't had trouble with the straggler yet."

What, was 'Straggler' my nickname now? I preferred 'Demente'…

"Roger that, Blutbad 4, but I'm handling three planes. I can't help you."

I was finding it difficult to get the plane in front of me, but then Diego flashed by my nose in his Super Tomcat, and the YF-23A pulled up and away from me. I seized the opportunity to swing around as fast as the Super Tomcat could manage, and saw that Diego was wonderfully lined up behind the Black Widow II—and, incidentally, I was lined up behind the both of them. It was perfect. "Hey, Impávido," I said, addressing Diego with his nickname, "pull up, would you?" He obliged promptly.

I loosed all the missiles that I could fire in one go, and watched as they flashed by beautifully underneath Diego, to smash into the YF-23A and turn it into a dazzling flare of light for an instant before it faded, and the twisted metal was falling out of the sky. I turned around just in time to see a missile destroy the last enemy, though I didn't know whose it was.

"Tajo, I bagged mine," I said.

"This is Clave. We're done on this end, too. That's six, right?"

"Yeah," Eva said. "That's six. Resuming formation now. We're still headed for the Newfield Islands."

_"Very impressive, but I'd like to see them do the same thing without so much difficulty. Number 4 came close to termination with that shot early on, and number 2 didn't do anything impressive other than avoiding damage. You said number 3 was making 'amazing progress', but he didn't really impress me. I did like number 5's performance, though."_

Ugh, these damned _voices_ again. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and just concentrated on staying in formation.

_"And number 1?"_

_"Average. Not amazing, but not lacking either."_

_"Well, I'd like to repeat the—"_

_"No, we aren't repeating the test—it takes up too many resources, and keeps the system from running at full capacity. Not to mention, it's unnecessary, since we haven't even finished the developmental stage."_

_"But, sir—"_

_"Leave it, Friedrich."_

_"Yes, Primary Gitacr."_

I'd come to the rather obvious conclusion that the 'numbers' to which the voices kept referring corresponded with all of the Estoque pilots and their positions in the squadron.

So who exactly was it that thought I, number 3, was making 'amazing progress', and what exactly did that mean?

And that name, Gitacr… Primary Gitacr, to be exact. It was too much of a coincidence—Primary _Paul_ Gitacr, with whom we'd spoken in Farbanti. Who else could it be?

The voices seemed to have faded. I had kept my plane in the formation, on Tomás' right wing, and nobody seemed to have noticed my inattention.

"Calling any and all available Primaries," Tomás said. "I repeat, any available Primaries, please respond." There was no response. Tomás growled softly to himself and didn't say anything else.

Goldberg Crater lay on the western horizon now. We would be passing north of San Salvacion at some point during the next hour, but sightseeing was most definitely not my foremost concern. I figured it was safe to assume that the sentiment went all around.

We had been attacked twice since leaving Gran Rugido, and both attacks had occurred under less than normal circumstances. Were they connected? Did it all have something to do with the mysterious E. Razgriz? And most importantly, would we be attacked again before reaching the Newfield Islands?

For now, though, there was nothing for it but to wait. Wait—and fly.


	5. Chapter 5

ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 5

-Interlude-

- - -

_Amidst the eternal waves of time_

_From a ripple of change shall the storm rise_

- - -

"That had better not be a computer game, Third Primary Quince Stephens." Marcus Bishop's stern voice cut through the silence like a gunshot.

"No, sir," Stephens said after a painfully obvious, hasty mouse-click, turning his head briefly to acknowledge the Head Primary's presence. "Just examining several aspects of the simulator."

"Mm." Bishop stepped forward and eyed the monitor. "Belkan data?"

"Yes, sir. An employee, Friedrich Müller, I believe, wanted to test the Estoque programs. He said a couple of them were making good progress, so I humoured him. He generated a Belkan squadron with considerable abilities, and sent them after the Estoque."

"Your tone indicates that this didn't go as planned."

"Well, the Estoque defeated the enemies, but they didn't seem to be as advanced as Müller had said."

Bishop said nothing.

"I was just concerned. I thought the Estoque programs should have advanced past that point already, but they had more trouble with a six-plane formation of YF-23s than they should have."

Bishop nodded and peered at the data displayed on the screen. "Yes. They've been active for almost a year now. A six-plane formation of _anything_ should not give them much trouble."

"My thoughts exactly, sir."

"Well, is something holding them back?"

"Not that we can detect, sir. You already know about the issues with number 3, but other than that, nothing is out of the ordinary. I was checking out the specs on the Belkan squadron, to see if maybe Müller made them more difficult than he intended. So far, I haven't found anything."

Bishop _hrm_ed faintly.

"Sir?"

"I'm just thinking."

A moment later, Bishop turned away from the monitor and approached the door. He stopped inside the doorframe and looked at Stephens over his shoulder.

"There is nothing to find in that Belkan squadron," he said. "I can guarantee that. Spend your time on something more productive."

Stephens frowned. "But, sir—"

"I've got other things to be working on. I assure you, that squadron was created exactly as Müller intended it." And he was gone.

Stephens turned back to the monitor, narrowed his eyes, and shrugged. "Whatever you say, man," he said, closed the program, and went back to his game.

- - -

Head Primary Marcus Bishop stared intently at the monitor, his fingers flying over the keyboard as his eyes flitted across the screen.

"Where are you?" he murmured. "What's your name, you filthy little rat?" For an instant he stopped moving, narrowed his eyes, examined what had stopped on the screen. Then he continued.

"Head Primary." It was First Primary Evans.

He didn't show any signs of having heard her, but she didn't repeat herself. "Hunter tells me you came in here like the Razgriz were chasing you—Her words, mind you."

He smiled faintly. "Yes."

"Would you like to tell me why? Or is this one of your many 'M-Y-O-B' moods?" Her light tone gave humour to what could have been irritated words.

"No, I'm not in an 'M-Y-O-B' mood," he said with a soft chuckle, "but I do need to concentrate. I have a hunch. I think I may be able to fix the Estoque issues, if my hunch is right."

"And the hunch?"

He didn't respond for a few seconds, so intent was he upon the screen.

Then, "What?"

She nodded. "Sorry. I'll leave you alone. I'm sure you'll tell me all about it later, right?"

"Of course. Hopefully, the whole company will hear about it at the huge party that is bound to happen if this damned project ever gets off the ground."

Karen Evans laughed and gave a short wave goodbye, even though she knew Bishop would not see it. A minute later, and she was gone, and Bishop was still poring over pages and pages of nearly incomprehensible data.

But then, "Aha!"

- - -

"What? But, sir, I've been an avid supporter of PED since—"

"Don't lie to me, Kupchenko."

"I swear on my honour, I'm not—"

"You're part of a family that spawned one of the most influential members of a World With No Boundaries. Now, how much is your honour worth, I wonder?"

Johan Kupchenko, nephew of the late 'Dr.' Anton Kupchenko, shook his head violently. "Sir, I am telling you the truth."

The Head Primary closed his eyes. "Your fingerprints are all over the virus, Kupchenko. It couldn't possibly be anyone but you."

"Then it's deliberate; I was framed. I didn't do it, sir. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for PED."

"That's a blatant lie. You're a member of the Grey Men, you've never hidden that from PED. The Grey Men aren't exactly chummy with PED. Ever since they came into existence, we've been on their bad list because of trying to hide the resources that started the Belkan War. We've been tentative with allowing you to work for us, but this is unacceptable."

There was a pause, and then a sudden change in Johan Kupchenko. He sneered. "Fine. It's clear I'm not making any progress here. Throw me out on the street. But I'm not the only one who stands against you and your schemes. This company is corrupt and has been allowed more than its due."

Bishop smiled. "And that's close enough to a confession for me." He was casually blocking the door when he pressed a button on his wristband. "And I promise you—You will not be thrown out onto the street." There was a rapid knock on the door.

"Enter," he said. Two security guards came into the room, but these were far from simple watchmen, as the machine guns slung at their sides made clear. "This man has been engaged in active sabotage of some of the most vital activities of PED, and has as good as admitted his actions. You know what to do."

They both nodded and took the silent man by his arms.

Johan Kupchenko, as Marcus Bishop had expected, was neither seen nor heard from again.


	6. Chapter 6

-1ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 6

- - -

_For after all what is man in nature?_

_A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing,_

- - -

Author's Note:

You had better frickin' enjoy this chapter, because I stayed up PAST MIDNIGHT

typing it, and as I was spell-checking the ENTIRE UNSAVED DOCUMENT,

my computer told me my word processor had a F——ING PROBLEM and

needed to close. I was PISSED. But did I turn off the computer and go to bed at

one o' clock in the morning? Noooo. I stayed up and ACCURATELY RETYPED

THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT. So if you don't ENJOY this thing, I HATE YOU!

(I'm just now going to bed at 2:16 A.M.!)

Extra note:

The Author's Note was typed immediately after retyping the lost document, so

yes, he was quite cross, but now he is typing the Extra Note, and he has calmed

down, and he promises that he won't hate you if you don't enjoy this chapter,

but he would really appreciate it if you would still give it a good review

because after all, he worked very hard on it, and deprived himself of hours of

sleep just before going camping for a weekend, and all of it for the pure and

simple love of writing. Well, that, and his weird obsession with Ace Combat.

- - -

I sucked in the air as if I thought I would never get another breath of it. When I realized where I was, I looked around the empty lounge area and tried to slow my breathing.

We had landed on the Newfield Islands hours ago, and everyone had opted to go their separate ways, since we had no immediate orders waiting for us. I had taken a nap in the lounge, and by the looks of things (in other words, the dark sky outside the window), I'd been sleeping for quite a while.

But I felt as if I had been jolted awake by a bolt of lightning, and I had a sinking feeling that it would be followed by another unusual event.

I was right, as I immediately learned.

_"Hey, why aren't you enjoying the party downstairs?"_

_"What do you mean? Look at this data."_

_"Who cares? That virus is gone, and the project is back on track."_

_"Laura, just look at this. It's insane. Before that virus, his external auditory senses were functioning at an unusual capacity. Now, though, nearly all his isolators are totally defunct. Everything's going off the charts!"_

"Hey!" I said, not willing to be the subject of another ghostly conversation without my participation.

_"…Did you hear that?"_

_"Yeah, it sounded like… Oh, my—You've got to be kidding me. Look at… Laura, get the Head Primary in here. Now."_

_"Sure thing."_

"Hey, damn it, talk to me! I can hear you, and I know you know I can hear you!"

"_Yes, Gigue?"_

_"I wanted you to see this. I think the virus you removed wasn't only inhibiting the project's learning abilities, but this here as well. We were having small problems of this type, but nothing of this scale until the virus was removed. Now, though, not only are his isolators useless; he also seems to be bypassing his AC's. He spoke, sir, and I don't mean in the simulator."_

_"I see. Thank you for showing me this. I want you to initiate an immediate shutdown of number 3's terminal."_

_"You mean…?"_

_"Yes. He is to be extricated."_

"Hold on, what is this 'extricating' going to do to me?" I said. "Hey!"

_"Yes, sir. Preparing to deactivate external sensory isolators. Preparing to deactivate universal action converters. Preparing to deactivate terminal number 3. Preparing to…"_

I strained to hear the rest, but at that point, all vision faded, and the world went away.

- - -

"…of the pilots?"

"Just create another A.I. to replace him. They won't know the difference."

"Sir, I'm done. He should be coming to any second now."

"Good. Alejandro Sortija, can you hear me?"

I was sitting in the last place I had expected to wake up—an office chair. I opened my eyes in time to notice a young woman leaving the smallish office I sat in. There was another man, quite a bit older, sitting before me. He had dark hair. I couldn't see clearly enough to distinguish the colour of his eyes.

I wasn't entirely awake, and I felt as if I had just tossed back seventeen shots of good vodka. I hoped the feeling would fade, because it effectively incapacitated me, and I didn't like being debilitated when I had no idea where I was.

"Yes," I said finally in response to his inquiry as to the state of my hearing. "Yeah," I said curtly, when I returned further to the world and remembered some of my more recent history, "yeah, my external auditory senses are functioning just fine, thanks."

He gave a soft smile. "So the isolators really were malfunctioning… Or perhaps it wasn't the isolators that were causing the problem. You should be feeling very tired right now, and a little off, almost as if you've been drugged, but there should not be any pain. Are you in any pain?"

"No," I said, and wished my eyes would stop crossing. I wasn't having much trouble staying on top of the chair, luckily. "No pain. But I feel totally smashed."

"That's a natural effect of such a sudden extrication. It will pass. But while we wait for the effect to wear off, I'd like to fill you in on what is going on, since you're probably wondering."

And so he did.

- - -

The year was January 2011, several weeks after the attempted attack on Oured by the SOLG, and another conspiracy was already stirring. The terrorist organization A World With No Boundaries, seemingly dormant since the Belkan War, had resurfaced, and this time with new allies—the still virulent Grey Men, and PED, which apparently was the name of the corporation I _thought_ I had been flying planes around for. However, PED had previously not been aware that they had been consorting with A World With No Boundaries, because the organization hadn't made themselves known outright. The Grey Men, as an organization, had ties with A World With No Boundaries, but the Grey Men were a very nationalistic organization—dedicated to strengthening Belka, primarily by reuniting the two Belkas. A handful of members of the Grey Men, however, had found out about A World With No Boundaries' association with PED, a company which had backstabbed Belka at least once, and they were not happy about working with A World With No Boundaries, a friend of PED. Rather than going after A World With No Boundaries, however, one of the Grey Men chose to attack the source—PED itself—by sabotaging their most important project, the Estoque project.

That's right--my squadron was the main project of PED. Five various 'learning' programs had each been used to augment the personality and intellect of five specific inmates of the Sapin Federal Prison. (The fact that I was a criminal—convicted on multiple counts of murder, no less—was shocking enough without all the rest.) The inmates had been carefully selected to be hosts for the programs, and had been connected to the system so that the programs could be tested, fully developed, and observed. The inmates' memories had been wiped by technological means, with no unintended damage to their minds. They had been given artificial histories so that they believed they had always been living the lives they were now experiencing as pilots of two separate groups; the Sapin Air Force, for which they barely ever actually flew as it was not a particularly active military branch; and a group they knew only as the Primaries.

Damn, did they lead us on.

In any case, back to the member of the Grey Men that sabotaged PED's Estoque project.

He had already infiltrated the company and implemented his plan early in the developmental stages of the project (just after the human pilots were put into practice in 2010), in the form of a special virus that inhibited a great deal of the learning properties of the programs, without making itself obvious. The virus was not even detected until now, in 2011. Now, however, Marcus Bishop, Head Primary of PED, had realized what was going on. He'd located the culprit, Johan Kupchenko, nephew of the infamous "Dr." Anton Kupchenko. Johan was relatively easy to track down—he apparently didn't give much thought to covering his tracks, perhaps because so much work went into keeping the virus a secret in the first place. In any case, he was caught, the virus was disabled, and the project went ahead as planned. However, certain problems related to the Estoque's number 3, yours truly, did not vanish with the virus, and when new problems presented themselves, they decided to remove me from the system entirely.

Now that I was out, though, they wanted to see if I could fly. And if I could, they wanted me to fix one of the most clichéd blunders I had ever heard of.

I mentioned that PED had been working with A World With No Boundaries without realizing who they were. Well, because they hadn't realized they were working with terrorists, they had willingly created and conveniently packaged a deadly weapon and sold it to A World With No Boundaries.

Now, way back before the Belkan War, PED created an incredibly successful A.I. that they codenamed 'Ace'. After Ace, they wanted to see if they could make another one, but cheaper. They tried a bunch of different methods, but ultimately, the project was a flop. The resulting A.I. pilots, though, were still better than most human pilots, so they were sold to the Belka Air Force at a low price, thus forming an unofficial alliance between PED and the Belkan government. The project itself was called the Farben Project.

At some point soon after the Farben Project's end, an offshoot of PED discovered a massive slew of valuable natural resources in southern Belka. It was reported to PED's headquarters in Erusea, but PED unwisely decided against informing Belka of the discovery. The Belkan government found out about it almost immediately, however. The informal alliance between PED and Belka was instantly severed. Obviously, PED got none of the resources.

The key to that story, though, lay in the Farben Project. At A World With No Boundaries' behest, PED had packaged copies of all the Farben pilots in one A.I., along with another program given to them by the terrorist organization. The extra program had only been referred to as 'H'. According to PED's analysis of it, the H program would enhance—or outright alter—the A.I.'s personality, general intellect, and flight ability.

In any case, PED, geniuses that they be, had created this nice little death machine and shipped it off to a bunch of pissed off terrorists. And now they wanted me to go and fix their screw-up, so that if anyone discovered who had sold the terrorists their weapon, PED wouldn't have to deal with the wrath of all the world's major powers coming down on their heads.

Once upon a time, I thought the Air Force was complicated…


	7. Chapter 7

-1ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 7

- - -

_For after all what is man in nature?_

_A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing,_

- - -

I stared up at the plane. It was a very small plane, and looked like a fighter of some sort, but I had never seen its like before. It was painted black all over, with no special markings except for a dark blue symbol on either side of the nose. I wasn't familiar with the symbol.

"This is a BAe Systems Hawk Mk 200." I looked back to see Fifth Primary Jasmine Hunter, a Primary I recognized from a chance meeting about two months ago, approaching. Her chestnut hair caught the wind as she walked and undulated smoothly behind her. She looked like something out of a movie, and for a moment I was so distracted that I forgot what she had said.

"Not the newest of aircraft, but it'll do the job." I was pulled back to reality.

"You want me to fly it?" I said.

"What did you think we wanted you to do?" she said with a one-sided grin. No doubt she knew exactly what was on my mind.

"I have no experience piloting this aircraft," I said then.

She smiled. I wished she wouldn't; it was distracting.

"Have you forgotten that you've got a robot holding your hand up there? Just put your hand on the flight stick and let your instincts take over. Tajo will do the rest."

"Tajo… Oh, you're kidding." She smiled. I finished the thought on my own. "Our call signs are actually the names of our programs?" She nodded, still smiling. "All right. Well, do I get a briefing?"

Without pause, she nodded and began, "A World With No Boundaries, who are officially known to us as Boundless, have launched our production, which we have dubbed H-Farben, from Dinsmark, on a course that will take it to Farbanti—the city in which we stand, although the specific destination is unclear."

"You want me to intercept it. In this Hawk. May I ask what kind of plane the A.I. is piloting?"

"That would be a JAS 39A Gripen, if they left it in the plane in which we gave it to them, but there's no guarantee of that."

"Well," I said, "I've got two more questions on the top of my head."

"Shoot."  
"Is the H-Farben itself a computer, or a robot-cyborg thing?"

"When we gave it to Boundless, it was installed in an android. They may have put it in another robot, which is doubtful, or relocated the entire program into an external computer terminal, which is more plausible but just as doubtful. Most likely, H-Farben is still in the same state as when we sold it. You said you had another question."

"What," I said, placing my hand against the painted letter on the plane, "is this?"

"That's the PED logo," she said. "PED, as in Primary Equipment Developers, Incorporated."

"There's an another PED?"

"This company isn't well-known to the public. I was referring to our cover company, a very successful company called Personal Entertainment Design." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "They mostly do video games, but they also make stereo systems, televisions, things like that. I only meant to point out that PED has two logos—this one here, which is the 'real' logo, and then there's another which is used for the front company."

"Ah," I said. "Makes sense, I guess. Is there a reason this company doesn't like to be seen by the public?"

She looked at me and smiled that stunning smile again. "Tajo," she said. "You, of all people, should know that PED isn't exactly above-board. Now, I think you ought to be ready to take off, unless you know something I don't."

"All right, now let me get this straight," I said. "I'm in this Hawk. I've never seen one before. Is this a half-decent fighter?"

She shrugged. "Half-decent, maybe."

"And I'm going up against an excellent pilot in a Gripen?" I tried to let my tone argue the case.

"Hon," she said, and even in the current situation it made me feel a little giddy, "you've overlooked the fact that, in your mind, there exists a pilot who will never stop learning how to fly. Eventually, you'll be able to fly a Frogfoot into battle against a squadron of Raptors—and come out victorious."

I sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing," I said. "I really don't want to get myself killed on my first ever real-world mission."

"This is your test flight," she said, "but remember, it's also theirs."

And that, clearly, was that.

- - -

A handful of minutes later, I was screaming through the skies at just under five hundred miles per hour, wondering if this airplane was even capable of breaking the sound barrier. I'd played around a little bit with the flight stick, and subsequently discovered that the manoeuvrability of this aircraft—well, all things considered, it could be worse. At least it wasn't a Nimrod. But as far as fighters went, it was not, by any stretch of imagination, what one might call 'state-of-the-art'.

"All right, Sortija, you and your plane look to be in good shape." First Primary Karen Evans was speaking. "We lost track of the H-Farben somewhere over Fato, but we just picked up a plane over the Atlantic Ocean, make and model unknown. You are to head north at maximum speed until you receive further orders."

"Roger that," was all I said as I wheeled my plane around smoothly—if appallingly slowly—to face the northern horizon. If this plane had one blessing, it was that the cockpit gave me a fantastic view all around. Once I was facing north, I pushed the throttle up slowly. As I examined the HUD, my speed climbed and finally levelled off at about six hundred thirty miles per hour.

I heard something like faint radio static, and ignored it, but a moment later, it returned, twice as strong. I frowned.

"Someone else on this radio frequency? I thought this was a privately operated channel…"

The static sounded again, and I heard something like a voice, but I couldn't catch anything through all the static.

"Whoever's transmitting, I hope you aren't trying to tell me anything important, because I can't understand a word you're saying."

"Am I coming in clear?" It was a male voice, but unfamiliar.

"I'm getting a bit of background static, but yes, I can hear you clearly. Who are you?" I leant back in my seat and looked around the cockpit, but I didn't see anything in the air that resembled a plane. There was a cumulonimbus cloud off to my right that vaguely resembled a squid, but that was it.

"That seems an awfully informal thing to say."

"Well, I could go into all the official crap, but we're all buddies up here, right?"

"Well, that could be true," my invisible friend conceded, "but on the other hand, I could be an A.I. owned by A World With No Boundaries, on a test flight to Farbanti."

I sat up and continued to look around the cockpit, between glances at my radar. I saw nothing. My pulse was gradually quickening.

"Quite blunt of you to admit something like that," I said.

"I figured I'd save you the trouble of looking for me. In fact, if you'll turn your plane about five and a half degrees clockwise and slow down just a tad, I should appear rather plainly on your radar."

"How helpful," I said as I adjusted my course and, as he said, a blip appeared on my radar, dead ahead. "You really want to fight me, don't you?"

"It's not that," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, "it's just that it'll be easier to kill you if you're coming right at me, as opposed to an angle."

"I won't be coming right at you once I locate you, I promise," I said. "No self-respecting pilot would actually try to play a game of chicken in a real-life situation. Trying to shoot someone in the face with a missile puts one at risk of getting himself shot in the face in return."

"So you're not as dumb as I was hoping," he said. "Well, maybe your little learning program will have as much fun as me. I doubt it, though."

I spotted a speck on the horizon, rapidly approaching, but something felt very wrong—that was no Gripen, I suddenly knew. The instant I made the realization, my HUD went red with a missile alert.

And from that instant forward, I was no longer piloting my plane. It felt as if I'd been possessed. I was still able to observe everything, but I felt as if a foreign spirit had power over my actions.

Before I had fully realized that there was a missile alert, I had yanked the throttle downward and wrenched my plane up to fly vertically, into the sky. The missile flashed by below—or perhaps it would be better to say 'behind'—and I pulled back further, to fly on my back. The instant I levelled off, a black and yellow blur flew past me. I pushed the throttle up and rolled over sideways to fly properly. My plane had no hope of catching up with whatever he was flying, but I was lucky enough to get a missile lock almost immediately. I fired, and before the missile even left the wing of my plane, I saw his black and yellow blur whip up and head back at me. I pulled up and let loose some machine gun fire. The pair of twenty-five millimetre ADEN cannons spat out bullets for about a second, maybe two. I couldn't tell if any of the bullets hit him, but his white and yellow blur pulled up startlingly sharply and I followed suit to keep him in my sights. Another burst of machine gun fire, and this time I was certain that I had hit him, because I saw his plane spew a split second's worth of flame and smoke before it faded and he flew as before. He also slowed, so that I could see his plane clearly, but I was still unable to identify the thing. It bore some vague resemblance to the Berkut, but I didn't think it was an Su-47.

"I'll make you a deal," I said then. "Your plane is damaged. I'll guide you to my base at Farbanti and let you land instead of shooting you down right here and now."

"And what do I have to do in return?"

"Just answer a question."

"And your question?"

"Just what is that beautiful plane you are piloting?"

I heard him laugh as his plane levelled off and I stayed on his tail. I stayed ready to blast his ass if he tried anything, but I was hoping he'd take me up on my offer. Even if I had no idea what PED would do to him once they got their hands on him. Speaking of which, where was PED anyway? They hadn't said anything this whole time. I half-expected to hear disembodied voices talking about 'number 3' and his 'isolators' again.

"This, my fellow pilot, is an Su-88 Flanker G. Created especially for yours truly."

"Flanker G, huh? I thought Sukhoi was a Yuktobanian company. How'd Belka get their hands on that thing?"

"It's a long story. One which I doubt either of us has time for at the moment."

Again, the situation progressed faster than my assimilation of it. He rolled onto his back and was gone, and I followed him as best I could. Before I knew it, he was on my tail. Try as I might, I couldn't get him off of me.

"You really ought to learn to recognize a flare," he said then, and I mentally kicked myself. "Now, the way I see it, I can kill you, or you can piss off back to your secret base in Farbanti. What do you think sounds like more fun? It's your choice."

"What sounds like more fun?" I repeated, wishing my instincts would take over again so that I wouldn't have to play this game. I slowly turned my plane back south and pushed up the throttle. He stayed on my tail. "I think I like the first option," I said.

"That's good," he said, staying right on my tail.

I had the throttle up near the maximum speed. I was just waiting until I could get it going fast enough, and then—there it was. I yanked the throttle down, rolled onto my side, and waited until the engines stalled and my nose angled itself toward the ground. He flew by above me and I pushed up my throttle to get out of the stall. I pulled up and hastened to get him into my sights, so that I wouldn't risk having him on my tail again. I doubted he would fall for the same trick twice.

"That was quite a risk you just took," he said.

"You should have shot me down when you had the chance," I said. "It'll cost you."

"I doubt it. You're flying an inadequate plane, and you're good, but I'm flying a Flanker G, and no offence, but I'm a better pilot."

"Want to bet?" I said, and released a missile that I'd spent the last minute trying to get a lock with. He pulled up, but unfortunately, it only served to place him directly in its path. He realized it at the last second, and yanked the plane over sideways. As a result, the missile passed just afoul of his right wing. The proximity, though, was enough, and the missile blew.

I saw a small piece of debris fall, and when I eyed his plane, it was wobbling. A small fragment of the right wing had been blown off, but he could still fly.

"You've won," he said. "I'm off home. You try to follow me, and my people will fire the long-range missiles they've already got aimed at you. There are more than thirty burst missiles, and one of them is bound to hit you if they fire. I suggest you run along home."

"Just how capable are these burst missiles?" I asked curiously. After all; he was damaged. I wasn't.

"They're capable of blowing your ass to the North Sea if even one of them lands a direct hit. I've got a damaged wing, and I'm bugging out. You've got about fifteen seconds to get off my tail, or suffer the consequences."

"This is all underground, right? I doubt Erusea would appreciate Belka firing missiles at her without explanation."

This gave him pause. I laughed to myself and pulled away, heading south again.

"We'll meet again," he said.

"How could we not?" I responded. He said nothing else. I smiled to myself and pushed up the throttle.


	8. Chapter 8

-1ACE COMBAT

The Fall of Estoque

- - -

Part 8

- - -

_The flames of hatred scorch the skies…_

_Igniting Gaia's funeral pyre._

- - -

I had returned to the PED headquarters in Farbanti—and been scolded for letting the H-Farben run free. When I told the First Primary about the missiles the H-Farben had mentioned, she did a double take and then acted like she thought I was lying. That's when I snapped.

"You didn't think it at all _odd_ that they'd be sending their bouncing baby boy over here without reinforcements? If you people are really that dumb, then maybe I'd be better off flying for a real Air Force, instead of this shady-black-market-weapons crap you people have got going on!"

She narrowed her eyes, but at that moment, the Head Primary entered and waved her off. She stalked out of the room.

"Alejandro," Bishop said.

"What?"

"You aren't being reprimanded for anything."

"Could've fooled me," I snapped. "If you people are just going to tell me off on account of what the bad guys do, you'd better plug me back into the computer and fix me so that I don't give a crap, because the way things stand, I'm about ready to punch somebody."

"The First Primary was overstepping her bounds," Bishop said amiably. "You were not responsible for the H-Farben's escape. Now, if you can relax, I've an update on the situation."

I sighed and closed my eyes.

_No sense in getting bent out of shape over a misunderstanding, after all. Just calm down._

"All right," I said. "What do you have for me?"

"You're going to like this," he said. "Follow me." And he turned away.

_Well, I can either follow him, or sit here and rot._

I stood up to follow him as he left. He led me to a room I hadn't been to before. It turned out to be a fair-sized office. Sitting within were three men and a _very_ pretty lady. Needless to say, it was she that caught my attention. Actually, she reminded me, more than a little, of Eva.

"You will be flying with these four," Bishop said to me. He looked into the room at the other four. "This is Alejandro Sortija, call sign 'Tajo'. He'll be flying the number three position." He looked back to me. "From now on, you'll be a member of Ameretat squadron. I trust you can handle the introductions?"

I shrugged. He nodded and left the room. I looked back to the rest of them.

"You already know my name," I said, shrugging. "So who am I going to be flying with?"

"I'm Kei Nagase," the woman said.

"Hans Grimm," said one of the men, a smallish guy with brown hair.

The black man sitting by himself with a book glanced up. "Marcus Snow," he said.

I looked to the man with short, light brown hair. He still hadn't said anything, but then he glanced up, eyed me curiously, and grinned.

"Foulke," he said. "Larry Foulke. Welcome to the team, Tajo. And congratulations. You're an immortal now." He began to chuckle to himself. Kei Nagase rolled her eyes. Grimm said nothing. And Snow just went back to his book.

- - -To Be Continued- - -

_The story of Alejandro Martin Sortija and_

_Estoque squadron will be continued in_

"_Ace Combat: Synthesis", which joins this_

_fanfic with "Ace Combat: Prolongation"._

_Make sure you have read "Prolongation"_

_before reading "Synthesis!"_


End file.
